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Startup has high hopes of being country’s first same-day weed delivery app

CTV Kitchener
Published Monday, April 29, 2019 6:55PM EDT

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The co-founders of Verda say they’ve been working on this for years.

The Waterloo startup says it’s the first in Canada on track to launch an app that would facilitate same-day cannabis delivery.

According to the company’s co-founders, Evan Adcock and Mackenzie Ferguson, there are a couple of software tweaks to roll out before the app launches in a couple of weeks.

“It’s a surreal moment,” says Adcock. “We have been working on this since just after high school, so three years now, and it’s a pretty surreal moment to be able to launch and be one of the first in Canada.”

The pair created the company with the help of Laurier’s Launchpad at the Communitech Data Hub and says their company is following the trend of app delivery.

“We’ve seen it in the food industry already, particularly where it’s absolutely redefined it,” says Ferguson. “So we’re really excited to see the actual effect and particularly the effects on the black market.”

They have put a pause on their education to work fulltime on the app, but they’ve hit a roadblock in their home province of Ontario.

On Monday, the provincial government cancelled its tender for couriers to make same-day pot deliveries. The only legal option at the moment is to go through the online Ontario Cannabis Store.

“We focused on the more privately-focused provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan,” Adcock says. Verda has partnered with a private cannabis retailer in Saskatoon called Living Skies Cannabis, set to launch within two weeks.

A spokesperson for Living Skies says that the duo is the first to have reached out to her that checked all the boxes.

“I had been approached in the past by other companies but none had done their due diligence in regards to what would be legally acceptable under Saskatchewan’s provincial regulations,” says Cierra Sieben-Chuback.

Adcock says that there are a few announced competitors, but he says that Verda is on track to be the first one to launch.

They’re awaiting legal changes in Ontario to roll it out here. They’re also not ruling out expanding their software outside of Canada.